INFORMATION QUALITY MANAGEMENT

1 INFORMATION QUALITY MANAGEMENT : REVIEW OF AN EVOLVING RESEARCH AREA (Research Paper) Mary Levis Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland Markus Helfert Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland Malcolm Brady Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland ABSTRACT: The importance of QUALITY is widely acknowledged throughout the world, not only for avoiding failure and reducing costs but also for gaining competitive advantage. This article reflects on two approaches of QUALITY MANAGEMENT that have gained popularity during the last decades: Total QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM) and INFORMATION QUALITY MANAGEMENT (IQM). The goal of this study is to illustrate the links between TQM and IQM. We will trace the roots of INFORMATION QUALITY to the Total QUALITY philosophy of the QUALITY gurus that gained popularity in the 1960 s and show how TQM underpins IQM.

2 We also suggest that IQM is coming of age and a new research area in its own right. Keywords: INFORMATION QUALITY MANAGEMENT ; Data QUALITY ; Total QUALITY MANAGEMENT 1. INTRODUCTION It is becoming increasingly evident that INFORMATION QUALITY (IQ) is important and highly sought after not only for decision making but also for avoiding failure, reducing costs and gaining competitive advantage. Professionals rely on INFORMATION to successfully carry out their work and the QUALITY of their INFORMATION source impacts their decisions. Poor IQ costs the typical company from 10% to 20% of revenue [37]. Wrong price data in retail databases may cost American consumers as much as $ billion in overcharges annually [14]. QUALITY pioneer W. Edward Deming declared that Japanese firms regard their employees as their most significant competitive asset and therefore provide them with good training in specific skills.

3 The goal of IQM is to increase the value of high QUALITY INFORMATION assets [17]. Barriers to providing useful INFORMATION for effective decision making are caused by IQ problems. On a daily basis the media reports on the impact of poor IQ in the healthcare sector [11,12,23,27,28,30,31,32,33,34,45]. Both of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) reports To Err Is Human and Crossing the QUALITY Chasm alerted health care professionals and managers to system defects and a redesign of the health care system, when they concluded that between 48,000 and 98,000 Americans die annually in hospitals as the result of medical errors [4, 20,21,40]. An understanding of the processes that generate, use, and store data are essential to understanding INFORMATION QUALITY . The traditional approach to QUALITY predominantly focuses on the technical aspects of QUALITY paying little attention to the soft systems (human side) [3].

4 However, QUALITY cannot be measured in purely technical terms by some characteristics of the product or service. The QUALITY gurus reviewed in this study each offer definitions of QUALITY but it is evident that there are substantial differences between them [3]. From the literature available a variety of approaches claim to provide solutions to the problems of poor QUALITY . This article reflects on two QUALITY approaches that have gained popularity during the last decades: Total QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM) and INFORMATION QUALITY MANAGEMENT (IQM). The goal of this study is to show how TQM underpins IQM and illustrate how IQM is an evolving research area in its own right. Some criteria for a new research area are as follows: have own well accepted models and frameworks; have a significant core of university researchers working in the area; demonstrated support for increasing research in the area; case studies, references to INFORMATION QUALITY leaders and academics, conferences; journal articles, and books publications; organisations available to partner the research area to help exploit research results.

5 The interchange of the words data and INFORMATION is widespread but there are some differences between the two. Data is normally described as raw facts used for analysis that has to be interpreted to derive meaning, and INFORMATION described as data that has been processed in some way. However, this paper will use data and INFORMATION interchangeably. The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 outlines philosophical underpinnings; Section 3 discusses Total QUALITY MANAGEMENT ; Sections 4 explains INFORMATION QUALITY MANAGEMENT ; Section 5 discusses methodology and findings; Section 6 gives a brief summary and conclusion. 2. EVOLUTION OF QUALITY The phases of the QUALITY evolution are as follows: QUALITY Control, QUALITY MANAGEMENT Approach and QUALITY Processes. QUALITY control can be traced to the pre Industrial Revolution era, when inspection committees enforced rules for marking goods with a special QUALITY mark.

6 Late in the 19th century the United States adopted a new MANAGEMENT approach developed by Frederick W. Taylor. Taylor s goal was to increase productivity by assigning inspectors which led to a remarkable rise in productivity but had a negative effect on QUALITY [18, 42]. In the early 20th century, manufacturers began to include QUALITY processes in practice [1]. In the 1950 s Japanese businesses welcomed the input of QUALITY MANAGEMENT Pioneer W. Edwards Deming [10, 48]. Rather than concentrating on inspection they focused on improving all organizational processes [3, 9]. Juran arrived in Japan in 1954 with his new insights into MANAGEMENT s responsibility for improving QUALITY in production [10] and with the help of Ichiro Ishikawa, Japanese QUALITY improved dramatically and they captured markets the world over.

7 By the 1970 s, the also embraced approaches that involved the entire organization: this became known as Total QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM) [1]. Since the turn of the century new MANAGEMENT systems such as IQM have evolved underpinned by the teachings of Deming and Juran [15]. From the literature reviewed a universal definition of QUALITY is difficult to achieve. There are as many definitions of QUALITY as there are QUALITY leaders, but some commonly accepted definitions of the QUALITY pioneers and their emphasis are outlined in Table 1. The Deming approach lies in the use of data analysis tools such as control charts. His PDCA is a four-step process for QUALITY improvement. Step 1: develop a plan to effect improvement; Step 2: carry out the plan; Step 3: observe and check effects of the plan; Step 4: study results to determine what was learned. Crosby concept, do it right first time emphasised culture change and identified areas in which QUALITY can be improved: improving awareness; instituting teams; setting goals; giving recognition; and continuously repeating the QUALITY improvement cycle [3, 8].

8 Feigenbaum divided QUALITY costs into four categories as follows: Internal failure costs associated with defects found before the customer receives the product or service; External failure costs, representing costs associated with defects found after the customer receives the product or service; Appraisal costs, representing costs incurred to determine the degree of conformance to QUALITY requirements; Prevention costs, representing costs of all activities specifically incurred to keep failure costs to a minimum [3]. Juran divided the QUALITY effort MANAGEMENT into a three-legged approach: QUALITY planning: developing products and processes to meet the customer s needs by discovering who the customers are and their needs; QUALITY control: improving QUALITY levels by lowering defects thus reducing costs, improving customer satisfaction and meeting goals; QUALITY improvement: continuously improving the QUALITY process [3, 42].

9 Ishikawa believed a culture of continuous improvement is born from MANAGEMENT responsibility [3] and in 1943, developed the cause and effect (fishbone) diagram to assist QUALITY improvement [2, 42]. DEMING JURAN CROSBY ISHIKAWA FEIGENBAUM Methodology 14-points 10 Steps to QUALITY Control 14 steps for QUALITY Improvement 15 effects of Company-wide QUALITY Control 4 Categories of QUALITY Costs Key Concepts PDCA Cycle Project MANAGEMENT Zero Defects - do it right first time Cause and Effect Total QUALITY Control Philosophy Customer Focused MANAGEMENT Responsibility - QUALITY Costs Cost of QUALITY Continuous Improvement from MANAGEMENT responsibility Cost of Non-conformance QUALITY Definitions Meeting the customers needs Fitness for Use Conformance to Requirements Continuous Improvement Customer Satisfaction Approach Use of data analysis tools such as control charts (Trilogy) 3 step process planning control action Company-wide QUALITY Circles Systems MANAGEMENT Table 1: Key Concepts of the QUALITY gurus 3.

10 TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT Deming introduced Total QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM) in the 1980's with the help of other QUALITY leaders, Juran and Crosby [26]. Although, there is no universal definition some common accepted principles are as follows: TQM, can be thought of as a MANAGEMENT philosophy, a corporate culture and an organisational wide activity fundamentally based on the participation of all members of an organization in improving processes, products and services; transforming organisational culture in order to meet or exceed customer needs and expectations, by means of consistent leadership and continuous improvement [18, 22, 25, 30]. In essence, the three basic principles of TQM are: focus on customer satisfaction; seek continuous and long term improvement in all the organization's processes and outputs, and ensure full involvement of the entire work force in improving QUALITY .